Assessing learning in MOOCs through interactions between learners

    Activity: Talk or presentation typesTalk or presentation (not at a conference)Academic

    Description

    This is a presentation of the paper submitted to the TEA conference.

    The paper presents a retrospective analysis of learning in a MOOC as reconstructed from the conversations that learners conducted in MOOC group forums while performing the course tasks. A mixed method approach was applied to analyse the quantity and the quality of these conversations. Two activity patterns were distinguished – in groups with higher activity levels, there were more individual contributions (posts) on more course themes and these contributions were broader spread throughout the course. In high activity groups there was also more interaction between participants, i.e., more questions, answers, explanations and elaborations. The presented study demonstrates how modeling interactions in group forums helps to elicit individual and emerging group knowledge construction and thus supports defining MOOC learning, informs MOOC design and provides insights on how assessing MOOC learning can be automated.

    The paper is available separately and is published in the conference proceedings.
    Period10 Dec 201811 Dec 2018
    Event titleTEA 2018 Technology Enhanced Assessment Conference
    Event typeConference
    LocationAmsterdam, NetherlandsShow on map
    Degree of RecognitionInternational

    Keywords

    • assessing learning
    • learner interactions
    • knowledge building
    • text analysis
    • MOOC learning
    • mixed methods